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Updated: May 2, 2025
Stipp's face showed a little surprise at this announcement, and he glanced from one man to the other as if he were puzzled. "Oh!" he said. "Dear me! Why what has Mrs. Lester called you in for?" Easleby, who had brought another marked newspaper with him, laid it on the manager's desk. "You've no doubt read of this Scarnham affair, Mr. Stipp?" he asked, pointing to his own blue pencillings.
See here! Easleby and I will go on to the Cornmarket now you get some of your men and follow. If we hear nothing there then, the Warren. But quick!" The two detectives hurried out of the police-station; Lord Ellersdeane and Betty, after a word or two with Polke, followed. Outside, Starmidge and Easleby paused a moment, consulting; the Earl stepped forward to speak to them. "As regards Mr.
Godwin Markham, money-lender, of Conduit Street, is the same person as Gabriel Chestermarke, banker, of Scarnham. That's flat! And now that we've got to know that much, how much nearer am I to finding out the real thing that I'm after?" "Which is exactly what?" asked Easleby. "I was called in," answered Starmidge, "to find out the secret of John Horbury's disappearance.
"What do you think he'd do?" asked Starmidge. "I think it's quite on the cards that he'd chuck his job there and then," said Easleby, "and not only that, but that he'd probably threaten exposure. Men of a very severe type of commercial religion would, my lad! I know 'em!" "You're suggesting what?" inquired the younger detective.
"I should say they finished him as well," said Easleby. "Easy enough job, that, on the evidence. Supposing one of 'em took Hollis off, alone, across that moor you've told me about, and induced him to look into that old lead-mine? What easier than to push him into it? Meanwhile, the other could settle Horbury. Murder, my lad! that's what all this comes to.
At half-past seven that evening Starmidge and Easleby stepped out of a London express at Ecclesborough, and walked out to the front of the station to get a taxi-cab for Scarnham. The newsboys were rushing across the station square with the latest editions of the evening papers, and Starmidge's quick ear caught the meaning of their unfamiliar North-country shoutings.
"Putting some pressure on you, I suppose, sir?" suggested Easleby, who knew that their host would tell anything and everything if left to himself. "Wants his pound of flesh, no doubt?" This Shakespearean allusion appeared to be lost on the lessee, but he evidently understood what pressure meant. "Pressure!" he exclaimed.
"Why, he's the lessee, of course! the boss!" "Ah, the boss, is he?" said Easleby. "Much obliged to you, sir. Well, now, then, just take these two cards to Mr. Castlemayne, will you, and ask him if he'll be good enough to see their owners for a few minutes on very important private business?"
I don't know, sir," continued Easleby, laying the blue-pencilled newspaper on the lessee's desk, "if you've read in the papers any account of the affair which is here called the Scarnham Mystery!" Mr. Leopold Castlemayne glanced at the columns to which Easleby pointed, rubbed his chin, and nodded. "Yes yes!" he said. "I have just seen the papers.
Frederick Hollis, for the purpose of clearing off a debt contracted by her son, Lieutenant Lester, with Mr. Godwin Markham; that Mr. Hollis had been found dead under strange circumstances at Scarnham, and that we should be vastly obliged to Mr. Markham if he can give us any information or light on the matter, or hints about it," replied Easleby.
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